Are new(post storm) major characters a waste of time?

[Ser Eric]

GRRM, IMO, made a huge blunder after ASOS.

 

As I understand it, he wrote ADWD as one giant volume, which ended up being too large for print, meaning he had to split it up.  He decided to do it geographically, but when he did, he realized instead of having 1 giant book...he ended up now with 2 half-sized books.

 

So to fill in the gaps and make AFFC & ADWD back to full-sized books, he needed filler material.  So this is why, IMO, we saw the emergence of so many new POV's in AFFC and ADWD.  It was all filler material to get the books back up to size after the split.  (This is also why AFFC seemed to drag-on story wise, as only half of it was actually intended to be part of the main story prior to GRRM splitting the original ADWD book).

 

Just see Briennes chapters in AFFC and Quentyn's in ADWD's for a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Both of these POV's could be cut out of each book and the plot of the story would not be effected much, if at all.

 

If GRRM had to split the book...fine, no issues with that.  But he should have never done it geographically, and instead found a good split-off point in the original manuscript to stop what became AFFC and the start of ADWD.  I think things would have, in the long run, kept on better pace with the first 3 books then creating this huge web of POV's and plot points that did not originally exist.

 

That is not what happened. You've just pulled that up out of thin air. And nor was any of it filler.

 

They were always in the plan once he scrapped the ridiculous 5 year gap (thankfully). Splitting in geographically made complete sense. The only issue with it was that time it took to publish DwD and thus creating a huge 11 year gap between the ending of SoS and DwD which quite understandably pissed some people off.
 

I'm not sure people understand what filler actually means. More happened in the Dorne and IB chapters in the Feast than many of Arya and Bran's chapters put together. Quentyn's apparently useless arc will turn out to be a lot more important than Oberyn's to the plot.

[Lateral]

Quentyn sends his regards

without Quentyn the Martell/fAegon alliance wouldn't make any sense and Viserion and Rhaegal would still be chained up.

[Sullen]

I'm not talking Howland Reed here, as he's been talked about at length since the beginning

 

He's not been talked at length since the beginning, he was merely mentioned here and there.

[Raving Stark the Mad]

I'm not talking Howland Reed here, as he's been talked about at length since the beginning

I mean the Jon Cons, young Griffs, Arianne Martell, QUENTYN, and so on. I know we need some new

characters to keep things interesting, but I feel like introducing new players this late in the game when we are already so

invested in so many characters just detracts from the core story.           Thoughts?

It depends.  Is the story about characters, specific characters, or is the story about a story?  It might have started out as the former, but seems to have morphed into the latter.  There is so much going on, I feel that many of these new characters are there to tell more of the story.  Despite the fact that there are some core characters,  surviving POVs from AGoT, there is too much going around them, outside their view, for the story to continue making sense without additional POVs. 

 

Could we have done without Arianne, Quent, JonCon, Aegon?  Sure, but the books would not have been as rich.  You would not see as much or know as much of what is going on. 

 

I admit I'm not as invested in the newer characters, but I'm still intrigued by them.  I'm glad they're there. 

[ASOIAF_Ali]

I never read any of the new characters as filler material. I know common criticisms of feast and dance is that they are slow paced and whilst I think this is true, particularly in comparison to a storm of swords, I think all the new characters add something new to the overall story.

With Dorne, we get our first real glimpse into a new part of the world, and it is suggested that Doran has a plan, although we don't see what it is but by sending Quentyn to Dany and Arianne to Aegon, we are shown their connections to the Targaryens. In addition we have the sand snakes set up in various positions of importance; Sarella at the citadel, Nym on the small council and Tyene to the high septon. So I think there is plenty of evidence there that the Dornish will play a big role in the future.

This is the same for the iron islands. Euron has travelled the world and clearly has something up his sleeve, even if, like Doran, we aren't entirely sure what it is. And by sending Victarion to Dany, we again establish a clear connection to the wider events. Also, Asha and Theon in the north also establishes that the iron born are involved in the bigger picture.

Finally, we meet Aegon and Jon Connington. Whilst there are doubts as to whether Aegon is legitimate, it is still set up for him to become a player and a potential candidate for the iron throne. Even if he is not the legitimate son of Rhaegar and Elia, there are people, most prominently Jon Connington, who believe he is. Therefore we have no reason to doubt that he will play some sort of role going forward.

I am not sure if these characters will play an important role in the end game or not, but I think they all have their roles and their connections to the wider events is well established. So, even if people aren't entirely invested in the new characters, I don't think GRRM has put them in the story for no reason.

[Cas Stark]

My beef isn't with new characters per se. It's with the story getting too big for its own good. For me, "Storm" wasn't the best book in the series; "Game" was. The plot of that book was already epic, yet compared with the latter ones, it was so wonderfully compact. Now it's sprawling out of control. That's the reason why every now and then, someone will ask "can he seriously finish it in just seven books? can he finish it at all?". Maybe, maybe not. George says he's a "gardener" kind of a writer. Well, it looks to me as if he waters and plants and maybe even fertilizes, but doesn't bother with pruning, mowing or weeding. And what comes of it looks... well, shit, it pretty much looks like my actual garden, most of the time.

 

So yeah, I do mind new locations and characters and subplots. Most of them, I don't give a rat's ass for.

 

We may be the only two people on here who think Game of Thrones was the best book.  But, I agree completely.  He gave more background in the first 100 pages of GOT than he has ever done since then.

 

I also agree the story has gone out of control.  Meandering and filler is not world building, and just because GRRM wrote it, does not mean it belongs in the books.

[Oberyion Martennister]

The characters are people...you're not gonna like everyone you meet but they should have as much a right to live as the next person

[Dragon in the North]

without Quentyn the Martell/fAegon alliance wouldn't make any sense and Viserion and Rhaegal would still be chained up.

fAegon is supposedly the son of Elia Martell. Why wouldn't it make sense for Doran to support his nephew?

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

fAegon is supposedly the son of Elia Martell. Why wouldn't it make sense for Doran to support his nephew?

 

Furthermore, fAegon actually landed in Westeros - with ten thousand swords, by the way - and pressed his clam, while Dany's still doing nobody-fucking-cares-what in Meereen. Why on Earth wouldn't Doran Martell ally with him (besides Young Griff being fake, I mean)?

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

Why we always end up discussing whether Quentyn was needed or not? Didn't he have enough of self-esteem on his own?

 

:agree:

 

Short answer; no.

 

Long answer; the problem is he has to introduce whole new casts of characters to flesh out Meereen, Dorne, and the Iron Islands, he can't pour the time into each character that he could in the early books because none of them are strictly speaking major characters, even if he could their appeal would be more limited because they have to fight for space in the hearts of readers against well established characters like the Starks, Tyrion, Jaime, Stannis, Davos and so on, which they would have great difficulty doing.

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

 

That is not what happened. You've just pulled that up out of thin air. And nor was any of it filler.

 

They were always in the plan once he scrapped the ridiculous 5 year gap (thankfully). Splitting in geographically made complete sense. The only issue with it was that time it took to publish DwD and thus creating a huge 11 year gap between the ending of SoS and DwD which quite understandably pissed some people off.
 

I'm not sure people understand what filler actually means. More happened in the Dorne and IB chapters in the Feast than many of Arya and Bran's chapters put together. Quentyn's apparently useless arc will turn out to be a lot more important than Oberyn's to the plot.

 

Good post

 

The five year gap was one of the worst ideas George has come up with, I'm incredibly glad he scrapped it. It would have been ridiculous for Yunkai to not bother with Dany for 5 years, or that Tyrion would do, something for 5 years, or Varys would hide under the Red Keep for 5 fucking years. Same with the Ironborn and the Dornish, doesn't work, the reactions to Balon's and Oberyn's deaths have to be immediate, not 5 years later.

 

And then there's Stannis and the Wall. I can't think of any reason why Stannis would hang around for 5 years until he decided to go south to fight Bolton, if in the original plan he was supposed to have been fighting Bolton for the whole 5 years (historically way more accurate in terms of how long major campaigns lasted) then why is it that every other major, continent wide war in the last 300 years has lasted less than half of that time? 

[Lady Sharya]

EXCUSE ME?
 
I don't like you.

You got flamed.:(
I think all characters matter...unlike opinions.;)

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Speaking of which, when I read people saying that Aegon won't be relevant I'm just like yeah, because I'm sure Griff will end up being more relevant than Young Griff. And it's not because I'm biased towards the most badass, charming, smart, peculiarly funny, well endorsed with balls of iron, beautiful eyes and amazing hair and beard of fire guy of Westeros, Essos and Ulthos, past and present. Biased? Please... pffrrr

I'm not sure people understand what filler actually means. More happened in the Dorne and IB chapters in the Feast than many of Arya and Bran's chapters put together. Quentyn's apparently useless arc will turn out to be a lot more important than Oberyn's to the plot.

I'm not so sure that Quentyn's arc will turn out to be more important. I think they both equally meant to be catalyst for future development and nothing else. I mean, what Oberyn did in KL for the narrative except dying and causing Dorne to enter finally the war? The only difference is that Oberyn was more charismatic.

[Light a wight tonight]

 

Start of Act 2 is middle age?

 

What's the start of Act 3? Funeral?

We've been treading water for two books now, setting up the final round of action. I'd say that Feast and Dance are middle age. 

 

Act 3: lots of funerals.

[Good Guy Garlan]

That is not what happened. You've just pulled that up out of thin air. And nor was any of it filler.
 
They were always in the plan once he scrapped the ridiculous 5 year gap (thankfully). Splitting in geographically made complete sense. The only issue with it was that time it took to publish DwD and thus creating a huge 11 year gap between the ending of SoS and DwD which quite understandably pissed some people off.
 
I'm not sure people understand what filler actually means. More happened in the Dorne and IB chapters in the Feast than many of Arya and Bran's chapters put together. Quentyn's apparently useless arc will turn out to be a lot more important than Oberyn's to the plot.

There is literally no other word to describe most of Brienne's or Sam's Feast chapters than filler. GRRM has them walking in circles before reaching their destinations because he still needs other pieces to be in place.

Unless you think Kojja Mo is Azor Ahai and Ser Creighton the Prince that Was Promised, that is.

And again, Quentyn's sole important to the plot was dying, which is why GRRM had to come up with the weird Tattered Prince tangent as window-dressing, so us nerds would drink that Kool Aid and discuss what role Dick Straw will play in Winds.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

I hadn't read the post above: I'm sure that mostly all character we met in F/D were already introduced, even though only by name, in previous books.

Just as an example, we already knew pretty much everything that happened to JonCon in Storm. There is no way he suddenly decided to invented his backstory. And, by extension, this meant he had already planned Aegon. Otherwise, what was he doing in Essos alive? :dunno:

[sarah.jenice]

I enjoyed the add in of Cersei and Jaime. 

 

I couldn't really get into the ironborn story, but I'm willing to see where it goes.

[Damp Hair - The Prophet]

If you feel the books are about nothing but plot, then yes, tangents to the main plot detract from the books. But they're not just about plot. If all you care about is the plot, you can just read a summary; what's the point of any of the rest of it? Why waste time reading 10000 pages of themes, characters, world-building, etc. that just gets in the way?And that's exactly what Quentyn is for. There are themes GRRM wants to express, ideas he wants to explore, world-building he wants to show off. As far as the plot is concerned, Quentyn's entire story would have been told with one brief mention of him off-page, and then his scene with Dany's council (which is only there to bring the Daario-vs.-Hizdahr story to the fore) and his climactic dragon scene (which really only serves to get the dragons freed). But showing half of his quest in depth lets him explore the quest idea, and how the concept of heroism affects young men. It also lets him show what life along the Summer Sea is like, instead of just telling us, and more generally to give us a glimpse that the world is much larger than we've focused in on so far. And it serves to introduce the scope and range of Doran's plot without just dropping a bunch of exposition.

Well said indeed.

ASOIAF/GRRM's greatest strength is the CHARACTERS. The POV narrative, the sense that these are real identifiable humans in a low fantasy world instead of dark lords and orcs. That is the basis for the quality and compellung nature of the books.

Also the reason last season of GoT sucked-- they cared about reaching certain plot points at the expense of characterization consistency amd logic.

[syrioforelseesforreal]

You got flamed.:(
I think all characters matter...unlike opinions.;)

[syrioforelseesforreal]

You got flamed.:(
I think all characters matter...unlike opinions.;)

I respect this opinion.